Page 8 - EurOil Week 30

EurOil PERFORMANCE EurOil
Serbia’s NIS slashes profits, invests more in H1-2019
SERBIA
SERBIAN oil company NIS, majority owned by the oil arm of Russia’s state-owned natural gas monopoly Gazprom, reported a net pro t of RSD3.2bn (€27.2mn) for the rst half of 2019, signi cantly below the RSD11.5bn net pro t posted in the rst half of 2018, the company said on July 29. At the same time, the company invested RSD18.4bn in the rst six months, up 7% year on year.
In March, NIS announced that will invest €1.5bn in new projects and facilities by 2025 and is considering launching oil and gas production in Bosnia & Herzegovina. e rst half invest- ments were made mainly in exploration and production, as well as in the modernisation of processing capacities, speci cally the construc- tion of deep-processing facilities with delayed
coking technology in the Pancevo Oil Re nery, the company said in a statement.
In the rst six months, NIS’ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at RSD15.9bn, down from RSD24bn a year earlier.
Oil and gas production amounted to 641,000 tonnes of oil equivalent, down from 661,000 tonnes in the rst half of 2018. e company processed 1.2mn tonnes of crude oil and semi- nished products.
NIS is majority owned by Russia’s Gazprom Ne , which holds a 56.15% stake in the com- pany. The Serbian government owns 29.87% while the remaining stake belongs to citizens, current and former employees and other minor- ity shareholders. ™
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Aker BP cleared for exploration drilling offshore Norway
NORWAY’S Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) has authorised Aker BP, a locally-based com- pany, to move forward with exploration drilling at Block 25/4, located in the Norwegian section of the North Sea.
e government agency said last week that it had issued a permit covering a two-well explo- ration drilling programme. Aker BP and its partners will use the Deepsea Stavanger rig to drill the 25/4-14 A and 25/4-14 S wells within the framework of this programme. ey are due to spud the rst of the two wells in the sec- ond half of August and hope to nish the job in about 22 days.
The group will drill both 25/4-14 A and 25/4-14 S in a section of the block that lies east of Alvheim, a eld that contains both crude oil and natural gas. It will use the data collected from the wells to assess the size of the block’s hydrocarbon reserves.
Block 25/4 lies within a contract area known as Production Licence 203 (PL 203). Aker BP won the right to explore and develop PL 203 in 1996, during the 15th round of bidding for sections of the Norwegian continental shelf. It holds a 65% stake in the project and serves as operator, and the remaining equity is split between ConocoPhillips (US), with 20%, and Lundin (Sweden), with 15%.
Aker BP has already used the Deepsea
Stavanger to drill other wells within the contract area. In May 2018, it arranged to use the vessel to sink the 25/4-12 S and 25/4-12 A exploration wells in another section of PL 203.
e company has also sent the rig to other elds on the Norwegian continental shelf. It recently used the Deepsea Stavanger to drill the 25/2-21 well, which led to the discovery of oil at the Liatarnet eld, and will deploy it to a con- tract area known as Production Licence 762 (PL 762) to drill a wildcat well that will be known as 6608/6-1 before directing it to Block 25/4.
e Deepsea Stavanger is a semi-submersi- ble mobile drilling rig owned and operated by Od ell Drilling, another Norwegian company. It is one of the GVA-7500 units built by Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering of South Korea. ™
Aker BP
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Week 30 01•August•2019